“This will become gold leaf,” Kenamun said.
Craftsmen were shaping vessels with hammers and strange–looking anvils. I noticed elegant vases and ewers of gold, silver and bronze. One man was softening gold over a fire for soldering or chasing. A man with a hollow reed and pair of tongs was holding a piece of gold in an open flame; the fire crackled and spat as he blew air into the reed. We moved into a second room, which was apparently where the products were finished. Four men were engraving and polishing huge gold jars. Another man was gilding an ebony statue, clearly Osiris.
The next building was an open–sided wooden frame topped with palm fronds inside a large walled compound. At the rear four large hearths blazed, piles of charcoal on one side, ingots of Aamunian copper on the other. Sweating men were shoveling coal into the hearths. Others were operating foot bellows. The bellows were springless; the men were lifting cords attached to the front of the bellows, then pressing them down with their feet.
“They’re making a bronze door for a temple,” Samut said. “They need four hearths because they have to melt a considerable amount of copper all at the same time so that it is all the same temperature.”
He showed us the long rectangular mold, with seventeen funnel–shaped vents along one edge. Just as he finished his explanation men set the mold on its side, in effect balancing the future door on its long edge. Then others began lifting large crucibles of melted bronze using flexible sticks. They poured them one by one into the vents. When they were done a brand new door lay on its side before us, the bronze slowly setting, emanating heat.
After visiting the weavers’ workshop, where women at several looms were turning flax into linen, we stopped briefly at the bakers’ ovens, the brewers, and the slaughter yards, where the animals destined to be sacrificed to the gods this day were being butchered. Nearby pens were crowded with cattle.
“Each day,” Senenmut told Nefer, “these estates supply the gods with food and drink and clothing. Your bakers make 3,220 loaves of bread and 24 cakes, your brewers 144 jugs of beer, your fowler kills and plucks 32 geese. Countless jars of wine are brought from the fermentation rooms, where they have been stored since the last harvest. At each new moon your estates provide 356 extra loaves, 14 cakes, 34 jugs of beer, an ox, 16 birds, and 23 jars of wine. All the food and drink, after being offered to the gods, is distributed to the priests and temple workers as payment for their services. So, the estates are necessarily large, and produce almost everything you can think of, and require tens of thousands of workers.”
“And they’re all mine,” Nefer said.
“You are a wealthy young woman,” Senenmut affirmed.
Then we all embarked in chariots to visit the surrounding estates that were under Nefer’s control. I insisted on driving her, utilizing the skills Thut had taught me. By the time we returned to our quarters at sunset we’d seen workers weeding fields and mending irrigation ditches and dikes, and fighting off birds who sought to feed on crops, and herds of cattle and horses, and great granaries filled almost to overflowing, and beehives, and storage buildings with honeycombs packed and sealed in massive earthenware jars, and gardens full of flowers and melons and vegetables. And we’d met the men who had served Hatshepsut and would now serve Nefer as overseers: Hatit, the corn measurer; Nebamun, the superintendent of the grain stores; Menta, overseer of the granary of Amun; Amenmose, overseer of cattle; Minnakht, overseer of two granaries and of the accounts of grain of Upper and Lower Kemet and overseer of horses. Each treated Nefer deferentially, due to her position. At one point she whispered to me that she would someday earn their respect on her own account, not just because she had succeeded her mother. For the first time we both realized how difficult it was going to be for Nefer to follow in Hatshepsut’s footsteps. Based on what I’d seen of Amun’s estates, it was no wonder that Kemet’s highest officials had supported Hatshepsut as king. She knew how to operate large complex enterprises. It was going to take every bit of Nefer’s skill and energy to measure up to her.
Before he left us, Senenmut promised that later that week he’d take us to visit Amun’s fishermen and the boatyards in which their vessels were made, the market towns scattered up and down the river where even more produce was collected, quarries, breweries, and vineyards. The very first order Nefer issued as God’s Wife was for Minmose to acquire a chariot for her, which she intended to use to ride around the estates so she could see for herself their state and observe her workers, the lesson Senenmut had taught us on our first tour of Mennefer, to trust most what our own eyes saw. I, naturally, was to drive her.
Later that night, at dinner, Nefer told me that once a week she intended to spend a day with the craftsmen and laborers in each specialty, working beside them, so she could understand exactly what it was they did. That seemed to me reminiscent of Thut’s approach to the army, another sign of how much brother and sister were alike. Every bit of what she’d seen on her first tour had interested her, and she told me she was determined to spend as much time as she could hereafter in the fields and workshops, learning all there was to know, so that she could figure out the best ways to increase the yield for both Amun and the king, and to prepare herself for the day when she would rule Kemet at Thut’s side. For, unbelievably, she had not yet abandoned the possibility that she would one day be Thut’s wife, despite Hatshepsut’s pronouncement. And if Nefer hadn’t, despite all the obstacles that stood in the way of that ever happening, neither would I.
***
Just a few months after Hatshepsut became king, Senenmut’s mother Hatnofer died. Nefer and Aachel and I had visited her many times, for she lived at Iuny, only ten miles south of Waset. She had only been in her mid–fifties when she passed away, about five feet tall, a stout grandmother with white hair that Senenmut assured us had once been dark brown and curly. Tju–Tju, he’d called her, a nickname from her youth. We, and Hatshepsut, attended her funeral on Qurna, one of two small hills on the flat ground on the west bank opposite Waset a little east of the bay in the hills. Senenmut had completed his tomb there only a month or so earlier, excavated into the rock just below the crest of the hill, with a flat narrow terrace in front. We ascended with some difficulty a steep slope that was already dotted with ancient and a few new tombs.
“That one over there is being dug for the steward Amenhotep, and that one for your tutor Senimen,” Senenmut told Nefer.
We stopped about eight feet below the terrace where the square entrance to another tomb had been cut in the hillside, directly below Senenmut’s. The hillside was scattered with coffins and grave goods.
“I’ve brought the bodies of my father Ramose and six relatives from Iuny – three women and three children – to share in the bounty of my mother’s burial,” Senenmut explained. “I was too poor to give them a proper burial when they died.”
The lid had not yet been placed on Hatnofer’s wooden anthropoid coffin with its gilded accents. An elegant cartonnage mummy mask covered with gold foil encased her head. A beautiful heart scarab made of serpentine and a small silver see–face rested on her chest. Two papyri and a leather scroll, no doubt containing texts from the Spells of Emerging in Daytime were tucked beside her. We all gathered around for a moment, each of us laying a bouquet of flowers atop her body. I noticed that Hatshepsut momentarily took hold of Senenmut’s hand.
As a priest conducted the Opening of the Mouth ceremony and the other burial rituals, I gazed at the grave goods that would accompany Hatnofer to the Afterlife. There were decorated wooden boxes with see–faces and bronze razors, and a rectangular red leather tambourine more than two and a half feet long – she’d played it for us once – and a low chair with a seat of linen cord, its back carved with rows of djed pillars and Bes and tyet amulets. I remembered sitting on her lap in it once when I was very young. There were three gable–topped chests, no doubt full of her linens, pots, a pot sling, a basket of food, and a canopic chest holding her internal organs. Hatshepsut’s name was etched on some of th
e items – many with her nomen, others with her kingly name. Clearly they had come from the royal stores, no doubt with Hatshepsut’s blessing.
I noticed an ostracon with a gridded sketch of Senenmut’s head lying on the ground near my foot in the midst of some loose stones. Likely it was a discarded test sketch for a wall decoration inside Senenmut’s tomb.
Once the ceremony concluded, and the coffins and grave goods had been sealed inside the tomb, everyone departed except Aachel and Nefer and Hatshepsut and I.
“Can we see your tomb?” Nefer asked.
Senenmut had shown us the plan for it many years earlier.
“Certainly, Majesty.”
We climbed the last few feet of the slope to the terrace. Senenmut assisted Hatshepsut.
“Being so near the crest created a few problems,” Senenmut said. “I was able to excavate the façade of the tomb directly from the rock, but the steep slope left no room for a forecourt. So I used the debris excavated from inside the tomb to build this buttressed terrace in front.”
The tomb was in an inverted T–shape. The central doorway was flanked by eight almost–square windows, four on each side. The façade had been built up with stone blocks so that it extended even higher than the top of the hill. We stepped inside. The transverse entry hall was well–lit by the windows. There were eight–faceted columns in the hall, and a row of statue niches set into the western wall. The ceiling was decorated. A tall narrow axial corridor ran almost eighty feet into the hill. At its end was a wall with a red quartzite false door stela. Red quartzite, I knew, was a material reserved for the royal family. That Hatshepsut had given Senenmut permission to use it confirmed what I already knew about their relationship. I inspected the inscription on the false door and read it out loud. “May you give to the steward Senenmut life, prosperity, joy, and endurance.”
Above the false door was a small stone–lined niche. “It’ll hold my statue,” Senenmut said.
The walls and ceiling were coated with white plaster and brightly colored scenes and inscriptions. I paused before a picture of six men carrying a variety of vessels.
“Tribute being given Her Majesty by men from the island of Keftiuh, in the Great Green,” Senenmut said.
A red–brown quartzite sarcophagus rested in the center of the last chamber, oblong, with kneeling figures of Isis and Nepthys at the head and foot, the four sons of Horus and two manifestations of Anubis on the sides, as well as inscriptions from the Spells of Emerging in Daytime. The outside had been polished and painted dark red to enhance the stone; yellow and blue paint highlighted details. In contrast, the lid had been left unpainted.
“Its very similar to mine,” Hatshepsut told Nefer.
“Your mother honors me by giving me a stone sarcophagus,” Senenmut announced proudly. “Usually, officials are buried in wooden coffins.”
More proof, I thought, that Hatshepsut loves Senenmut.
We went back outside and stood on the terrace and looked over the valley, the fields, the huts of farmers, the river, Waset on its far side.
“Will any statues of the two of us together be in your tomb?” Nefer asked.
“Indeed they will, Majesty,” Senenmut replied. “I’ve selected one of the block statues that shows your head emerging from my cloaked body as my arms curl protectively around you. You wear the pleated sidelock of youth and the uraeus emblematic of a royal child, your name preceded by your title ‘God’s Wife.’” He paused. “Though it is not certain I shall rest here after all.”
“Oh?”
Senenmut glanced at Hatshepsut. She nodded. “Her Majesty has graciously given me permission to construct another tomb for myself in the memorial temple I will build for her here on the west bank, and to leave traces of myself in portraits and statues and inscriptions in out of the way places inside it.”
“You’ve proved your love and devotion to Mother – and myself – over and over,” Nefer said, hugging him. “You’re certainly worthy of that honor.”
“It means more to me than any other.”
And so Hatshepsut and Senenmut will be joined for eternity, I thought, whatever their fates in this life may be.
1472 BC
Regnal Year 8 – Thutmose III; Regnal Year 1 – Hatshepsut
“Captain Djehuty! We’ve spotted the wretches! They’re north of Buhen, within a day’s march of the fortress!”
Captain Djehuty was, like me, standing beneath the canopy on the royal boat. I was about to enter the cabin just beyond with a platter containing bread and fruit and meat for Hatshepsut’s and Nefer’s morning meal. I turned towards the scout racing towards our boat on a footpath at the edge of the river. It was a little after dawn. Our fleet was drawn up along the bank of the river, cookfires burning, soldiers eating. The scout hurried up the gangplank, and after a short conversation with him Djehuty barked a command and one of his aides blew several long blasts on a trumpet. Almost immediately, army commanders and officials from all over camp came running towards the royal boat.
Both Hatshepsut and Thut appeared moments later from their cabins and moved to opposite sides of the table beneath the canopy. Thut was fully dressed – he always rose early – while Hatshepsut wore the simple white linen shift she’d slept in. Captain Djehuty was watching the scout sketch a map on a sheet of papyrus spread flat on the table. A steady stream of footsteps pounded up the gangplank. The area under the canopy was soon crowded with officials and army commanders and a few military scribes and even a stray priest or two.
Less than two months earlier, word had come that Nubians had risen in revolt at Semna and were marching north towards the Second Cataract towards the great fortress at Buhen. Clearly, their challenge to our control of the gold mines and trade routes of the South could not go unanswered. Messengers had flown back and forth between Waset and Mennefer. Three weeks ago Thut had appeared at the southern capital with a fleet of boats carrying two thousand soldiers under the command of Captain Djehuty, a small portion of the kingdom’s army. A day or so later we’d embarked on campaign. Hatshepsut had allowed Nefer to come along, part of her training to be king. And where she went, Aachel and I went too.
Wawat and Kush, the sections of Nubia closest to the First Cataract, had always been important to Kemet. The great king Senwosret had pushed our boundary far to the south and built a string of fortresses to control the river, garrisoning them with the soldiers of Kemet’s first permanent army. But after his house fell, Kemet collapsed as a unified state and the fortresses were taken over by Kushites. King Kamose had restored the southern boundary at Buhen early in his reign before turning north to fight the Chiefs of Foreign Lands at Avaris. King Ahmose had in turn extended the border all the way south to Sai Island, a little north of the Third Cataract. King Amenhotep had subsequently fortified that location, making it a launching pad for future invasions. We’d traveled past the ancient fortifications on our journey south, at Kubban and Ikkur and Miam and Faras and Serra; all had fallen into ruin in the last several centuries.
When I was at Swenet just a year earlier, wishing I could see Nubia, I’d never dreamed I’d actually get the chance, and so soon. It had been a challenge getting the fleet past the First Cataract – an ancient canal dug around it by the third king Senwosret in antiquity had silted up generations ago and had to be cleared so our boats could sail around the miles–long boulder–strewn stretch of violent white water. The river valley in Wawat was far different than the portion I was used to – harsher, no cultivated strips on both banks, just desert plateaus and low hills. Villages were small and far between, and there were few inhabitants.
No one noticed me under the canopy or told me to leave, and I wanted badly to know what was going on, so I moved back against the cabin wall, unobtrusive, close enough to hear. The scout was pointing to his map. Hatshepsut and her advisors – Senenmut, Seni, Chancellor Neshi, Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet – were on one side of the table, Thut and his – Iset, the northern vizier, his chancellor, several high–ranking s
oldiers – on the other. It had been like this ever since Thut’s return to Waset, the first time he’d been back since Hatshepsut had taken a share of his throne – awkward, strained, the two factions mostly keeping to themselves, coming together only to plan the campaign. Captain Djehuty seemed to be the one person both sides looked to – Thut, for obvious reasons, and Hatshepsut because she had no military commander of her own to rely on, and because Ahmose Pen–Nekhbet had vouched for him. For his part, Djehuty went out of his way to treat both kings equally.
Iset had accompanied Thut and she too was under the canopy. She’d shadowed him wherever he went since the day of his arrival at Waset, ordering about his Medjay bodyguards, isolating him from anyone associated with Hatshepsut. As a result, neither Nefer nor I had spoken with him since his return, neither at the capital nor on the journey. Iset wouldn’t let us anywhere near him.
Nefer still harbored the hope that Thut would take her to wife. Neither of us had any idea if Thut still considered that a possibility. He hadn’t gone out of his way to try to contact Nefer at any time in the last year. In fact, he’d barely looked at her on the journey. I had the sinking feeling that Iset had convinced Thut that Nefer had been involved in the plot to take his throne. That was, for me, the only thing that explained his attitude towards her. I wondered if he blamed me as well. I fingered the amulet around my neck. I wondered if he still loved me. I hadn’t heard from him either. As much as I wanted to speak with him, to find out, I held back. Drawing Iset’s attention to me would only make things worse, of that I was certain.
Even Ahmose had kept his distance from me. I took that as a very bad sign. He never avoided a pretty girl.
“The wretches are a day’s march south of Buhen, and we’re about a day’s sail north,” the scout said. “They’re clearly making for the fortification there. They have at least as many men as we do. Buhen is lightly defended by the enemy currently – a few soldiers and townspeople only. But if the bulk of the wretches get there before we do and take refuge behind its walls, we’ll face a long siege.”
Beauty of Re Page 17